WWW.WEDNESDAY

WWW. WEDNESDAY asks three questions to prompt you to speak bookishly. To participate, and to see how other book lovers responded, click here. 

1. What are you currently reading? 25 Days Till Christmas by Poppy Alexander. Kate is an Army widow, struggling to create a Merry Christmas for her son on a military pension and salary from a retail job. It's hard, because she's lonely and it hurts to hear her little boy refer to his father as a star in Heaven. Daniel was his beloved sister's caretaker, but now she's gone. This is his first Christmas without her, and he's longing to make real connections, to get some relief from the grief.

Yeah, I know what's going to happen. But that's OK, because I really want it to happen, and part of the pleasure of this book is getting there with two characters I care about.

Also, holiday depression is a real thing. I appreciate seeing it acknowledged sensitively in a book like this one.

2. What did you recently finish reading? Christmas Every Day by Beth Moran. The book sounds formulaic. Jenny loses her job and has her heart broken in the big city and, through a series of very convenient coincidences, ends up living in a rural area. Here, she makes new friends, is attracted to her hunky new neighbor, and has the merriest Christmas of her life.

Yet is wasn't as predictable as I'd expected. There are a couple plot twists that knocked me back on my heels, and we don't usually get that in a holiday romance. So brava to the author!

I do wonder, though, why we can't have a heroine who escapes a bad relationship in her stifling small town and broadens her horizons, her circle of friends, and dating pool in the big city? Kind of a Carrie Bradshaw Christmas.

3. What will read next? I don't know.